The topic of this dissertation is the analysis of acting through legal and political mechanisms of an international community, namely the actions the European Economic Community (later known as the European Union) had undertaken to prevent conflicts and achieve peace on the territory of the former Yugoslavia from 1990 and the first signs of a crisis up to the end of the armed conflicts/wars in 1995 and the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement. Just when the first signs of the crisis and the first armed conflicts began to appear in the former Yugoslavia, the European Economic Community created the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Also, the Yugoslav crisis took place in parallel with the creation of a new united
Europe that faced the challenge of proving to be a regional and global force in the creation of the world policy, as well as proving its ability to independently resolve possible conflicts within its territory without interference from the policy of the United States. The Yugoslav crisis, later manifested in armed conflicts and wars, was a test of the institutional system of the former and future united Europe, a guideline for the institutional development of the European Economic Community, and an indicator of the inability to implement the adopted policies/decisions that would resolve the crisis and prevent conflicts.
Armed conflicts/wars and the crisis in the former Yugoslavia were eventually contrary to the spirit of the future united Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the inability to find a solution to end the crisis and armed conflicts, as well as to achieve peace, raised the issue of sustainability of such a community. Redrawing the borders perforce by the local policies in the former Yugoslavia with the aim to ensure the settlement of one nation in one state was contrary to the principle of uti possidetis iuris and the rule of law relied upon by the modern Europe after World War II. The European Economic Community, and later the European Union, as well as all the other members of the international community engaged in conflict prevention and achieving peace in the former Yugoslavia, did not know how to use their legal and political mechanisms to protect the aforesaid principle which represented the reasons/starting point for all the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. The action of the international community, primarily the European Economic Community/European Union in line with the sources of European and international public law, using the legal and political mechanisms stemming from the aforesaid sources, without the possibility of their actual implementation, as well as the USA’s decision not to engage in the conflict from the beginning, created a subjective impression that there is no political will to tackle issues crucial for conflict prevention, achieving peace, and protecting international law in the former Yugoslavia. It was the desire for global domination in the new world order and the desire to show Europe the independence in managing and addressing the crises in its territory that enabled the USA to take an active role in addressing the crisis by using legal and political
mechanisms in line with international public law provisions, which prevented further conflicts/wars and ensured peace. Political reactivation in the former Yugoslavia enabled the USA to clearly demonstrate its political domination in “crisis management” in Europe, whilst preserving its own credibility as well as the credibility of NATO and the European Union.